The Dutch CleanTech Challenge Finals on April 3, 2017 saw around 60 students from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) work together on sustainable business ideas and bag prizes.

The first prize winner team was PHB-D, which thought of an innovative way of producing bioplastics for the packaging industry. The jury consisting of Daan Domhof, managing director at YES!Delft, Thibaut Decré from HighTechXL and Leon Pulles, business development manager at StartGreen Capital, was impressed with the team's pitch and idea on sustainability impact, feasibility and scalability.

The team members Felix Koenigs, Vidhvath Viswanathan, and Jelmer Smits won €1,500 to further develop their idea, coaching from Leon Pulles from StartGreen Capital, and tickets to the international CleanTech Challenge competition in London sponsored by the LDE Centre for Sustainability.

Koenings and Smits are both in RSM’s MSc Global Business & Sustainability program. The audience prize of €500 was also given to the PHB-D team.

The business competition Dutch CleanTech Challenge is linked to a course at Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship. Almost half of the group of nearly 60 participants were RSM students, and some of the lectures were led by RSM lecturers.

In the course, combined student teams from both universities execute feasibility studies for sustainable business ideas. In the third quarter of the academic year, the teams work on the validation of their ideas guided by the lectures and coaching. The final takes place at tech incubator Yes!Delft at TU Delft.

The second prize went to two teams. Team 3Cycle worked on recycling 3D printing waste into new filaments to be reused for printing. This team comprised RSM master students Felix Johne, Sjors Brandsma, Steven Polak and Sven van der Knaap.

The second team, ROTEC, worked on combining ocean thermal energy conversion and reverse osmosis into an affordable solution to turn sea water into drinking water. Each team won coaching sessions by Leon Pulles from StartGreen Capital. The ROTEC team, comprising only TU Delft students Kizjee Marif, Timo Veldt, Machiel van der Veer, Roy Smits and Fabian Koppes, also received a one-year membership to the CleanTech Delta.

The RSM MSc in Global Business & Sustainability is a 1-year program designed exclusively for those who want to be part of the solution to today’s sustainability challenges facing business and society.

It brings students into close contact with the global frontrunners in corporate sustainability, with governmental organisations and with the non-profit sector. Our graduates are equipped for an international business career with meaningful impact in a wide variety of sectors.

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is one of Europe’s top 10 research-based business schools. Based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade, RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management.